Tiger Woods shot an even-par 70 on Thursday at the Honda Classic in Round 1 and trailed the leader by just four strokes after 18 holes. Woods was tied for the lead at one point early in his round when he got to 2 under, but he fell back off the pace coming home with a bad double bogey at the par-5 third hole (Woods' 12th hole of the day).

Still, it was an impressive day from Big Cat, who battled pretty severe wind all day at a PGA National course that has historically been among the most difficult on the PGA Tour slate. It's just his seventh round of 2018, but Woods looked as complete as I've seen him look so far this year.

Here are five takeaways from Woods' 70 in Round 1.

1. Morning scoring average: Woods' 70 is even more impressive than you might expect. Of the 36 players who had finished the morning wave just after Tiger's round was over, the scoring average was 72.3. Wind is apparently expected to pick up in the afternoon, which means that Woods' 70 should stand nicely at the end of the day. Unless he bails out early on Friday, we should see him solidly ahead of the cut line in Round 2 and fighting for weekend positioning instead of taking a couple of days off.

2. Why wind helps him: Woods is actually aided at tournaments where the course is either shorter than normal or is being beaten down by wind. Why? Well, because it takes driver out of Woods' hands and forces him to be creative both off the tee and with his approach shots. So while it doesn't seem like a place like PGA National would be ideal for somebody trying to find a rhythm, it seemed to actually help him on Thursday. It was a day when he had to hit a lot of irons off of tees for positioning, to get under the wind or because driver would have been too much with the wind.

3. Iron swing looks (mostly) exquisite: Speaking of iron swings, Woods' stinging-cut hack with his long irons looks fabulous -- especially with his 2-iron, which he's using often off the tee. 

We're never going back to early 2000s Tiger when he was doing unspeakable things to the golf ball, but as far as 42-year-olds with reconstructed backs go, this swing is pretty great. Watch his ball flight here. Woods can contend with that.

4. Why hit driver at all? All of this sort of begs a question Alan Shipnuck was asked recently about why Tiger hits driver at all. I agree with his answers (he thinks he can't win without it and he's prideful about being long), but I think the former is the primary evidence Woods would give. It's really difficult for guys who play 40 yards behind Dustin Johnson to win golf tournaments, and that's where Woods would live if he was hitting 2-iron or 3-wood off the tee. On the other hand, he wouldn't be hitting from the adjacent fairway as much, either.

5. Can't live on par saves: Despite the strong ball-striking day, Woods still had to get up and down eight times on Thursday (he did so in six instances) because he missed eight greens in regulation. That is fun to talk about and point to when we're talking about things we like from Tiger's game, but it's no way to win a golf tournament. Tournament leaders Justin Thomas and Daniel Berger got up and down four and five times respectively (although Thomas failed to get up and down three times). 

Low-stress golf wins events, and that's not the world Tiger is living in right now. One of the times he failed to get up and down led to a hideous bogey that kept his 70 from being something special. But the problem there is not the short game. It's that he was in a position where he had to summon it to begin with.